Frantic Friday Reads: Triggered Republican Snowflakes Scream Sweet Nothings to Trump All Day Long

Pablo Picasso, Acrobat and Young Harlequin, 1905

Good Morning Sky Dancers!

I’m going to borrow something from the Late Great John Lennon near the anniversary of his death by a crazed white guy looking for attention.  History is replete with crazed white guys looking for attention and today is no different.  So here it is!

“I got blisters on me fingers!” 

And why you ask?  It’s because I had to punch the mute button so many times yesterday during the Judiciary Committee’s Congressional Debate on Articles of Impeachment that I should also have carpal tunnel.  Just as Brett Kavanaugh sneered, cried, and screamed his way into the Kremlin Potted Plant’s favor, so did the Angry White Men on the bottom shelf of the dais all day and evening and night long yesterday.

Yes, the transition of the body that represents the people to an out and out circus is complete.  The debate yesterday featured a repetitive attack on “process” from the Republicans vs “what the president did is unconstitutional and against the rule of law” by the Democrats.  It came complete with clowns and verbal dagger throwing fit for Fox news sound bites.  The Republican part was designed for the Audience of One whose real claim to fame is the role of a  fake successful businessman on reality TV.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Send in the Clowns!

Yes. Nearly half of Congress has transitioned to the new reality TV world spewing propaganda goals as parroted by Fox News cut out personalities.  The gyrations of logic twisted into pretzel sentences was befitting of circus acrobats.

As a I write, Jerry Nadler is announcing that the House Judiciary passed the abuse of power and obstruction of Congress impeachment charges.  He looks exhausted. We’re all exhausted.  Trumpist Republicans and their cult leader live in the world of Abusers so, yes, we’re ALL exhausted.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec,At the Circus Fernando, the Rider, 1888

Historically and Constitutionally, this act is traditionally somber.  Yelling like it’s a sportsball match is inappropriate. Frankly, an entire set  of mothers should come get their sons and ground them to their basement bedrooms.  Shirtless Gym, Mai tai Matt, and lil Dougie should be first back to the nursery.

Kurt Bardella, NBC News THINK contributor, writes this: ” If there’s one thing we’ve seen consistently from Republicans during the past few weeks of congressional impeachment hearings, it’s yelling.”  Yes.  This is the new role of Congressional Republican white men in this Reality TV show designed for Fox News Viewers.

Perhaps Democratic Coalition’s Jon Cooper put it best when he tweeted Monday, “Why is Doug Collins always yelling?” CNBC’s Christina Wilkie pointed out a similar phenomenon, noting that Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz was “yelling about whether the rules of the hearing are, in fact, the rules of the hearing.”

Indeed, in observing my former House GOP comrades over the many days of contentious House hearings, I am reminded of a scene from the classic Will Ferrell comedy “Anchorman,” where the famed (and fictional) Channel 4 News team angrily confronts its news director over the hiring of a female reporter. In the scene, several of the male journalists take turns yelling their opposition to the addition. Steve Carell’s character, Brick Tamland, isn’t really smart enough to have a critique but wishing to be included, he screams, “I don’t know what we’re yelling about!”

That pretty much sums up Republicans’ defense of their current leader. If they yell loud enough and long enough, what they say about the circumstances of this impeachment inquiry will become truth. Their calculation is that by yelling about anything and everything, the American people will either be convinced or at the very least so annoyed they’ll stop watching. To the GOP, yelling seems to be both a demonstration of strength and a deliberate effort to wear down Democrats and any other Americans who care enough to tune in.

Thus, the outrage that’s been on display these past few weeks hasn’t been spontaneous. This isn’t an indication of passion or righteous anger. It is the manifestation of a decadelong marketing strategy that has kept them in the driving seat of Congress for the better part of the Obama and the Trump administrations.

Miss La La at the Cirque Fernando, Edgar Degas,, 1879

So, this morning, the “Judiciary Panel Approves Impeachment Articles and Sends Charges for a House Vote”.  This was written by Nicholas Fando at the NYT. 

A fiercely divided House Judiciary Committee pushed President Trump to the brink of impeachment on Friday, voting along party lines to approve charges that he abused the power of his office and obstructed Congress.

After a fractious two-day debate steeped in the Constitution and shaped by the realities of a hyperpartisan era in American politics, the Democratic-controlled committee recommended that the House ratify two articles of impeachment against the 45th president. In back-to-back morning votes, they adopted each charge against Mr. Trump by a margin of 23 to 17 over howls of Republican protest.

The partisan result and the contentious debate that preceded it were harbingers of a historic proceeding and vote on the House floor, expected next week, to impeach Mr. Trump, whose nearly three-year tenure has exacerbated the nation’s political divisions. Mr. Trump, who insists he did nothing wrong, is now only the fourth American president in history to face impeachment by the House of Representatives for “high crimes and misdemeanors” and possible conviction and removal from office by the Senate.

Marc Chagall (1887-1985)
Les trois acrobates

Check out those adjectives grammar fans!!

These Articles will go to a full floor vote and then into the hands of Mitch McConnell. From Politico: “Republicans try to avoid an impeachment trial civil war.”

The party is uniting around a strategy that could quickly acquit President Donald Trump of articles of impeachment while giving them the opportunity to call witnesses later in the trial if Republicans and the president are not satisfied with how things are going, according to interviews with nearly a dozen Republican senators on Thursday.

Heading into the trial, Republicans’ plan would be to call no witnesses and simply allow House Democrats and then the president’s attorneys to make their case before the public. After that, the Senate would consider calling people either for live testimony or closed-door depositions.

 It’s a plan they believe will insulate the Senate GOP from pressure to call a host of controversial witnesses — which the caucus would struggle to do for political and procedural reasons alike — while putting Trump on track to be cleared before the end of January.

“The direction we appear to be headed is to let the House managers present their prima facie case which would mean no witnesses, to let the president’s counsel do the same thing,” said Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), a member of leadership. “And then to decide if there’s a reason to go forward from there.”

House Republicans and Trump have repeatedly urged the Senate GOP and its slim majority to summon the likes of Hunter and Joe Biden before the chamber in a spectacle they believe would bolster the president’s case. Senate Republicans have resisted the idea, warning they couldn’t cobble together the 51 votes needed to do so under Senate rules. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has also repeatedly cautioned his members against votes that divide the party ahead of a tough election year.

Charles Demuth (1883-1935) Acrobats

Indeed, Repubicans think the show must go on when it comes to Joe Biden and the hapless Hunter.  The Clintons had plenty of years to work up thick skins but how will it impact Joe?  One of the key signals to this future came from Screaming Mimi MattGaetz.  This is from Vanity Fair’s Bess Levin.

All this week the House Judiciary Committee has been holding its own hearings as part of the impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump. As was the case with the the House Intelligence Committee proceedings, Republican lawmakers, lacking any credible defense of the president, have had to resort to floating insane conspiracy theories and taking sad, cheap shots that have immediately blown up in their faces. On Thursday, it was Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida’s turn.

Gaetz, a proud Trump supporter who started the rumor that George Soros was funding migrant caravans and who frequently speaks of the “deep state,” used his time this afternoon to go on a rant about Hunter Biden’s substance abuse problems. Moving to add an amendment to the articles of impeachment mentioning the former vice president’s son, Gaetz read a passage from a New Yorker article detailing an incident in which Hunter was in a crash while driving a rental car; according to the story, the Hertz rental officer on the scene said he found a crack pipe in the car and white powder residue. “I don’t want to make light of anybody’s substance abuse issues,” Gaetz said, convincing no one, “but it’s a little hard to believe that Burisma hired Hunter Biden to resolve their international disputes when he could not resolve his own dispute with Hertz rental car over leaving cocaine and a crack pipe in the car.”

Obviously, it would be slimy under any circumstances to make Hunter Biden’s substance abuse issues part of the conversation. But, incredibly, Gaetz chose to do so despite the fact that he has his own history of…being arrested for driving under the influence. Back in 2008, Gaetz was pulled over driving back from an Okalossa Island nightclub called Swamp after an officer clocked him going 48 in a 35 mile per hour zone. According to the officer, Gaetz, then 26, was driving a BMW SUV registered to his state senator father and fumbled for his license and registration, had bloodshot and watery eyes, and swayed and staggered while getting out of the car. Smelling alcohol, the officer asked Gaetz if he had been drinking, to which Gaetz said no, before admitting minutes later that he had, claiming it was only two beers. The officer reportedly twice conducted an eye test, which Gaetz failed. Gaetz refused field sobriety tests and a breath test and was arrested. Despite the fact that Florida law dictates his license should have been revoked for at least a year for refusing the breath test, Gaetz somehow got to keep his. Ultimately the charges were dismissed, and Gaetz later said that “I made bad decisions that resulted in an arrest, and that is sort of something that we all live with.”

Given his decision to air Biden’s dirty laundry, however, Democrats weren’t just going to let Gaetz shade someone else’s history of allegedly driving under the influence and move on.

Two Acrobats,Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, 1932-33

This, undoubtedly, will be a taste of our future under the Big Tent.

So, our blog has been around about 10 years now and we’ve been through a lot together. It’s hard to believe that we’d end up watching impeachment hearings together.  This is my third time at this rodeo and probably for most of you also and this one just really really feels different.

Nixon was a seriously flawed man with a self esteem problem that caused him to do things he couldn’t do through force of personality or likability.  Clinton with his aw shucks who me personality used it to get what he wanted even though it was personal and problematic.  Trump is pure, raw, raging ID with more personality disorders than a circus has clowns.  Nixon’s chipping away at the rule of law and Clinton’s personal abuses look quite tame by comparison.

Trump has a chorus of screaming, angry white mean and a few tag along women behind his epic meltdowns and complete lack of character and morality.  His crimes are orchestrated by feckless enablers and ignored by Machivellian partisans who want to rewrite the Constitution without doing the work through the law making process.  No Republican appears to have the probity to bring about an ending that’s best for the country.

As with all things surrounding Trump, I’m not sure any of this will end up well.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daQwJXCi0eg